Cheer Story: Capital Projects In Whitewood During COVID-19

What community projects/improvements have you been working on? We have done quite a few large projects this year, some of the highlights would be the dog park we built at the north west side of town. This was built from fundraising money, we had a proposal sent out to surrounding businesses and we were able to raise over $11,000.

We also underwent a large park rejuvenation project which included an irrigation system for our town square, refinishing all our picnic tables and cleaning up eye sores around town. A walking trail was also made that stretches around our Larson Park. On top of all that we are renovating our pool, which includes replacing all existing interior parts of the pool and placing a brand-new liner inside of it.

Our curling lounge is also under renovations which will now allow us to offer it as a multi-purpose facility. We are extremely proud of everything we have accomplished so far and will continue to upgrade and build to better serve our community.

Any challenges? The challenges we faced along the way were our staff size. With Whitewood being a smaller community, we have a small staff, so a lot was asked of our crew. They have done an outstanding job going far beyond their requirements for the betterment of our community.

What impact or benefits does this bring to the community and citizens? These projects will positively impact our community for years to come. All of these projects addressed community needs and requests. We will be able to not only offer better programming for our community but also better environments for our staff to thrive in. Everything was built with a purpose of impacting our community positively economically, socially and with the purpose of addressing the recreational needs.

Any upcoming projects or improvements in the future? As our curling lounge has undergone its renovations, our arena lobby will soon be going under renovations as well by 2021. We will also be recreating our baseball diamond #2 to have a grass infield and have a similar style to the Toronto Blue Jays field (Rogers Centre), this will begin in September of this year. We are in the process of developing our recreation and parks strategic plan which will outline our community improvement ideas for the next 10 years.

Cheer Story Submitted by Ryan Dale, Recreation Director/Facilities Manager, Town of Whitewood